Pest control is not cheap and neither is calling an exterminator, but what about the trail of ants that you see in the kitchen every day?The truth is that while calling an exterminator might be the best idea because this pest can actually have a long life. In fact, if let to grow, ants only develop into a larger trail and cause more trouble.Ants are insects that are easily overlooked and hardly thought about until the trail grows too long and threatens to engulf your entire house in a few months. The best way to control this pest is to control the growing population. Read ahead to learn some useful facts about ants like fire ants have an average lifespan of about 30 days. Pests such as ants often live under the blocks of the pavement and carpenter ants live for around a decade if the worker ants have access to enough food. And a fire ant is named after its firey red body. Learn more about ants and how you can take control of the situation and ensure that they do not bug you for too long!If you enjoyed this article, why not also check out can ants bite and how do ants communicate.How long does a regular ant live?There are only a few places on the face of Earth where you will not find ant colonies. That tells us quite a bit about these insects and the fact that they are pretty widespread throughout the globe.If you have been noticing a serious infestation of ants at your house recently and are wondering how long they’d live and if calling an exterminator absolutely essential, you might be disappointed to know that they could live for decades! Hiring the exterminator would thus be the best thing to do. There are around 12000 different species of ants on earth and while the lifespan of each species is different, the fertile female ant or the queen ant continually produces more eggs, which means that it might take a couple of years if you wait for the ant infestation to subside on its own!An ant colony or two can easily be spotted on any pavement or near a rich food source. These colonies or nests can have thousands of ants in them - depending upon the size of the nest and the number of eggs that the queen ant of that particular species can produce at one time. The most ‘regular’ ants are the ones such as carpenter ants and black garden ants. Each ant has a different lifespan, among which, the lifespan of the male ants is the shortest. While some male ants can live to be around six years old, most male ants die right after mating with a female ant. This means that most males of the ant family die within a couple of weeks of being born.Worker ants, which mostly comprise sterile female ants, can also live to be around six to seven years old before they die. However, the lifespan of these insects is largely subjective and depends on the availability of food. Workers often stop eating in order to provide more food for the colonies or nests when there is a scarcity of food, and hence, often suffer from an untimely death due to starvation. The average workers among the black garden ants can reach an age of around 15 years if favorable conditions are found. Meanwhile, carpenter ants have a substantially shorter lifespan of around 7-10 years from birth to death.Red fire ants, who are infamous for their painful bite, have a rather short lifespan when compared to other species. The queens and workers of the colony can only live for about a month till the entire life cycle is concluded. Depending on the species of ants that have infested your house, you may or may not have to call an exterminator or pest control immediately. However, it is advised that pest control is hired if there are multiple colonies of ants since there might be repeated infestations if the problem is left to solve itself.Does the queen ant live longer?Queen ants typically live longer than any worker ant of the colony since the queens are responsible for producing eggs and holding the colony together.Another reason why queen ants live for decades in some cases is that workers are almost always entirely dedicated to making sure that the queen has the most amount of food and other amenities. This ensures that the colony would be ever-growing. This is also a result of the way in which genes work among ants. The sterile worker ants of the colony do not have the genetic construction that would allow them to outlive the fertile queen ant. As you may have noticed if you have ever observed an ant colony closely enough, the queens are also larger and somewhat scarier as compared to the males and females of the colony.The queens of the ant colonies can live up to 30 years! Most queens live for around 15 years, however, there are records of certain queens living to almost twice that. Such longevity of life also suggests that if you do not tackle pests early enough, the queen ant can mate with more and more males of the species - therefore remaking the colonies that you dread so badly!What is the ant life cycle?The life cycle of the males, females, and queens in the ant colonies remains the same, irrespective of the ant. The first stage in the life of an ant is the egg stage.Understandably, this is the stage at which the queens lay eggs and worker male and female ants take care of them. One of the lesser-known facts is that as a rule of mating in ants, only the fertilized eggs develop into females. The unfertilized eggs that the queens lay develop into male worker ants. This is also one of the reasons why the genetics of an ant is dependent on its caste and is therefore largely variable.The next stage is the larvae stage. During this time of the ant’s life, these tiny insects tend to only wait for their bodies to develop. At the larvae stage, ants look more like worms and depend on the rest of the colony for food. The worker ants also protect the larvae so that they can develop into a batch of new workers within a week or two.The pupal stage follows. We are most familiar with the pupal stage through butterflies. While ants do not have such wings, some species do form a cocoon-like structure. The wings and antennae of the ants are pressed against their bodies and hence, ants never develop into fully winged insects. Only the queens and a few worker ants are fully winged. These wings are only capable of short and very negligible flights. The pupal stage is mainly a time for the ants to get rest since they tend to grow the most during this period.The adult stage follows the pupal stage. At this stage, the ants that manage to survive through the first three parts of the life cycle and have gathered enough rest become capable of lending their services to the other inhabitants of the nest. Ants also shed their wings once they have found a site to build a nest, and hence, the ants that you may have noticed at your house are mostly not winged. Mating is also one of the reasons why this pest sheds its wings.How long do ants live on an ant farm?Different ant species have different lifespans when in an ant farm. While a fire ant usually has a shorter lifespan, there are some species that can live for a decade or so.Ant lifespans are therefore highly subjective and dependent on the species that you decide to grow and nurture in an ant farm. While the members of a colony at your ant farm can sometimes only last for a few weeks, there can be instances where they live for a few months. The lifespan, under such circumstances, would be dependent on the food that the ants eat, the number of eggs that survive, and if you protect them enough.Do all species of ants have similar lifespans?The average lifespan of all ant species is different, mainly because of how different they are from each other.While carpenter ants can live for a couple of years, fire ants, on the other hand, have a lifespan of just a couple of months or just 30 days. Irrespective of whether the ants live for a few weeks or months, it is important that you hire pest control or call an exterminator so that infestations do not repeat, and so that the pest does not infect your food.What is the longest living ant?The longest living ant was a queen ant called Lasius. This queen ant was brought up in captivity - which shows that the lifespan of an adult ant is largely dependent on what it is given to eat, and if the colony is allowed to thrive.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly facts for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for how long do ants live then why not take a look at how do ants find food, or can guinea pigs eat bread.
Pest control is not cheap and neither is calling an exterminator, but what about the trail of ants that you see in the kitchen every day?
